AI-enabled multimodal neuroimaging for neurotransmitter mapping in normal aging and age-related disease.

The main argument in this paper is that regeneration of neural signals in recurrent loops may constitute a neural, organizational prerequisite for conscious states. The contents of awareness correspond to the sets of structured, neuronal signals that are being actively regenerated in global and local loops at any given moment. Analogous to self-production network theories of living organization (autopoiesis, autocatalytic networks), this “neural autopoiesis” hypothesis invokes a self-production network of actively regenerated neuronal signals that support sustained informational and experiential states. Whereas life depends on regenerated material components and their self-sustaining organizations of cyclic processes, awareness is hypothesized to depend on regenerated neural signals implementing informational distinctions. Once organizational closure is achieved, then such systems and their informational states become self-sustaining. This may be the fundamental reason that sustained, recurrent processes are essential for brain functions and awareness, such that the regenerative process might constitute the neural requisites for states of awareness. This paper presents two general hypotheses regarding the neural basis of conscious awareness. Organizational closure through active signal regeneration is necessary for conscious awareness.